Field of the Invention
The present invention is in the field of drilling into the earth's crust, such as to discover and extract oil, minerals, water, or other natural resources.
Description of Related Art
The manual handling and manipulation of drilling rod by workers is one of the more dangerous jobs associated with drilling into the earth's crust across all industries. Thus, to increase the safety of drilling rig workers, thereby reducing down-time associated with injuries and potential liability, there is a need in the art for a system that automatically retrieves a drilling rod from a storage position and manipulates the drill rod sections into an in-line position and into engagement with the drill string and rotary drive for drilling into the earth's crust.
In addition, most drilling methods employ a fluid such as air, water or mud to cool and lubricate the bit and to flush and convey cuttings away from the bit face. The drilling fluid is admitted through a swivel that is connected in some manner to the upper terminal end of the drill string. In many drilling methods the swivel inner stem and outer housing attach to the rotary drive or kelly drive. However, for the chuck-drive diamond core drilling method the swivel inner stem is attached to the upper terminal end of the drill string and the outer housing is attached to a wire rope hoist. On a chuck-drive drill rig a hollow rotary drive contains a chuck with internal grippers which clamps to and imparts rotational and axial motion to the drill string. Because the upper end of the drill string can be far out of reach above the chuck, current practice requires the operator to manually screw the swivel stem onto a newly added drill rod before it is hoisted into position to the top of the drill string. In a similar manner the operator must manually unscrew the swivel stem out of a rod which has been removed and lowered from the upper terminal end of the drill string. Consequently, this manual handling of the swivel has made it problematic to automate the complete rod handling cycle in a totally hands-free manner for the chuck-drive drill rigs. Thus, there is a need in the art for a system or device that allows an operator to safely add and remove drill rods to and from the drill string in a completely hands-free manner